While this may come as a shock to nobody, this reason for this is actually very simple. It's because I very rarely actually have anything useful to say.

I was chatting about this concept with Hellmark the other day in the SocDev Chat Room, mulling over why I, a man with possibly the most boring existence on Earth, try to keep a website that revolves primarily on articles based on my thoughts.

Keith dutifully suggested that maybe I should try treating SocDev more like a blog. Post more about my life, my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions. Post about whatever it is I do when I'm not posting, or read some news articles and then vent my thoughts on them here.

This advice, while well-intentioned, would unfortunately fail for a few reasons. For starters, let's address my daily life. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is "ZOMGZ u r0x0r m4N i lUv it!!!!!11" and 1 is "Dear God, please tear out my eyes before I have to read another word!", how would you rate the following article?:

"Today I woke up in pain. I checked in on the SocDev chat room and read the backlog from while I slept, whilst checking my email. Deleted 126 spams, received 5 legitimate automated emails, no real personal or business emails. Checked my bank balance - still piss broke. Played a game for a few hours. Watched a few TV eps. Ate some food. Gamed for a few more hours. Chatted in SocDev Chat for a bit. Ate again, watched more TV. Went to bed in pain. Read my book for a while, stared at the ceiling for indeterminate amount of time, eventually passed out."

Now, how would you feel, as a SocDev article reader, if I posted that article EVERY SINGLE DAY, occasionally changing "126 spams" to "138 spams" or "119 spams"? That's right, you'd press the little X in the top right corner and never visit this boring piece of shit website again.

My thoughts wouldn't be much better. That would probably read something like "I'm bored. My back hurts. I'm bored. My neck hurts. I'm bored. These people in my chat room are idiots...". You get the drift. Yech.

So, I could take Keith's advice, and post my opinions on news and current events. Problem what that is, I don't really have any. Not only do I remain utterly sheltered from the world of current events, with my knowledge of the outside world limited to what my housemate might hear on the radio on her way home from work, or whatever quirky URLs people may post on the forum or in the chat here, but even when I do become aware of things, I rarely have an opinion on them. At the most, my opinion is limited to a half-assed mumbling rant on how the world is slowly going to hell and taking all our rights and freedoms with it. More likely though, my response to such things is a lacklustre "Meh..".

So, generally speaking, my complete lack of an interesting life, combined with a total void of any interesting thoughts or opinions, makes it overall pretty hard to write an article for ol' Social Deviancy these days! And to make matters worse, when something happens that I do have an opinion on or something to say about - for example, the death of Steve Irwin a few weeks ago - my brain seems to go into a mode of such procrastination and despondency towards the notion of actually sitting down and putting the opinion to words, that either somebody else posts about it first, or the topic just becomes so badly a case of yesterday's news that I feel an idiot posting about it when I finally feel motivated to - or, in the case of the example above, both.

But tonight, I did something very different for once, something that might be considered worthy of, if not a decent SocDev article, at the very least, a half-assed blog post. So, let's pretend for a minute that Social Deviancy is my "blog" and I am one of those "bloggers" that are taking over the net, and see what happened to me today....

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Dear Diary,

Recently I have found myself wishing fairly often that I was dead. This sensation is not wholly unfamiliar to me, in fact I have experienced it at least once or twice a year for as long as I can remember. Usually I just put some old Nine Inch Nails on, scream my lungs out for a bit, and get over it by the next morning. But I make note of it now because of late, I have been experience this disconsolate sensation a little more frequently - say, about, once or twice every waking moment of my miserable existence. And this, as they say, is Not A Good Thing...

I have spent a lot of time lately laying on my bed staring at the ceiling, or milling about my house in the dark like an unresolved ghost haunting the place he was killed in. I have wished for everything from a prompt brain aneurysm to spontaneous combustion. But tonight, when I discovered the stovetop had been left on and I was seriously tempted to strike a flame and see what happened, something in me snapped and I realized I had to get my mind out of this funk.

So, I went over to my dusty home gym set, brushed the cobwebs off, and did 20 reps of every exercise I could think of with the equipment I have to use. I worked my biceps, my triceps, my quadruceps, I worked my lats, my pecs, my glutes, I did situps until I thought I'd puke. And then, deliberately rushing so I'd be in the act before my brain realized what I was about to do to it, I put my shoes on and strode purposefully out of the house.

Please picture, Dear Diary, before I continue, the fact that it was about 1am or so, on a late Wednesday night/Thursday morning, quite dark outside, and starting to rain. I don't want you thinking there was any logic to my actions.

So, I pulled on my shoes, and marched out of the house, determined to walk until this bleak mood left me or I couldn't walk anymore. I left with empty hands and empty pockets - and this is uncharacteristic of me also, I never leave the house without my wallet, sunglasses, keys, watch, phone, and so on. But this time, I just left.

I knew of a soccer field nearby, and with less thought than purpose, I marched down there. It's not at all far away by most people's standards, but remember, I never walk. Anywhere. I mean that seriously, and very literally. I break a sweat marching to the mailbox. If I need to get to the end of the street I ask for somebody to drive me. I quite simply Do Not Walk Ever. But tonight, I walked down to this field.

By the time I got there, I'd made up my mind about something. I was going to run. For the first time since I was a little child, I was actually going to make this tired, sore, beaten old carcass run, or die trying. So I picked a point to start, and a point to stop at, and bracing myself, I picked up my tired feet and I jogged from point A to point B.

When I got to point B, I stopped for a moment and waited for the heart palpitations to slow down and get my panicked breathing under control. I hadn't moved that fast or that far in as far back as I could recall. But it didn't sit right with me - I knew I hadn't actually been running. I was close to passing out, but I knew I'd feel like a cop out unless I kept my word to myself and actually ran - not jogged, but ran. So I turned back to point A again, and I sprinted. I ran like somebody had just stolen my wallet. I ran like there were a horde of prison-toughened gay wrestlers chasing me for a piece of ass. Like Forrest Gump... I just ran!

Back at point A, I had to pause again for my vision to unblur, and the tingling in my arms to stop. I was pretty sure the black spots at the edge of my vision were just night shadows, and that if I gulped enough air eventually I'd stop feeling like I was being choked. Though despite that, I was pretty proud of myself. I'd ran. Sure, it was about fifteen feet. Sure, there are some people in wheelchairs who can run further than that. Sure, a pregnant woman with a baby in a stroller and a toddler under one arm probably could have covered the distance faster. But shit, it was a personal victory. Fuck the world - I fucking ran. =)

When I got home, I made up my mind to have the most thorough shower known to man. I was going to get under that water and not get out until I was red and shiny like a fresh apple, as wrinkled as last year's prunes, or the hot water ran out, whichever came first. And I washed myself as clean as I've ever been. I washed my heads - the big one and the small one. I scrubbed my hairy pits and my scary bits, I scrubbed my back, sack and crack. I brushed my teeth and my hair. I blew my nose and my load. I shampooed, conditioned, mouthwashed, and then I scrubbed, exfoliated, and moisturized like a 35 year old single mother on speed dating night at the over 28s club. I was cleaner, inside and out, than the day I was born. And then I just sat in the bottom of the shower and let the water run over me for what felt like hours...

Obviously, throughout the course of this manic burst of fitness and cleanliness, I had a lot of time to think, and I've made up my mind about something. From now on, every time I get this disconsolate, despondent, miserable sensation into my head, and I can't find a damn thing in the world to do to take my mind off it, I'm going to do exactly what I did tonight. I'm going to pump iron, I'm going to run around, I'm going to scrub myself senseless. If I'm going to die miserable, then so help me God, I'm going to die miserable and fit! If my life is going to be this pointless, miserable, pathetic waste of an existence that it has been for as long as I can recall, then damn it all I will be a pointless, miserable, pathetic waste of a man who is clean.

It is possible, Dear Diary, that this may be my final entry. Wish me luck.

PS:- I didn't want to detract from the point of the article by mentioning this in the same post, but it seemed noteworthy: about a third of the way into the article, I stepped out to my front porch for a cigarette. It was about 4am by this point, nearly pitch black, and absolutely pissing with rain. What do I see but a suspicious looking car parked right outside my house, which, as I step into view, all of sudden starts up and zooms off quite suspiciously fast? So I came back inside after my smoke and called the police. I felt rather foolish being that I couldn't tell them anything whatsoever besides that it was a sedan, and it shouldn't have been lurking outside my house at 4am on a Thursday morning in the dark and pouring rain for no legitimate fucking reason, but hey. At least if I get killed in my sleep tonight (shyeah, like I could be that lucky!), they'll have a note on record that the killer wasn't driving a minivan or a moped. {sigh}

Then, as I was wrapping up the post, a spider decided to descend, rather slowly and delicately, from my ceiling, into my lap. As it passed my eyes and I noticed it, I tried to break the web with a swipe of my hand so that the little fucker would complete his descent anywhere but on me. This resulted in an unpleasant tousle between man and arachnid, and hilarity ensued. Well, it would have been hilarious to watch it happening to somebody else, anyway. It actually just fucking sucked.

This just isn't my night. If any of you are religious at all, would you please pray for a mercifully swift death for me soon? Gracias.

Well, one thing is, it doesn't have to be just things you're experiencing, but just thoughts on subject you run across. Like one forum I am at (the comic strip one for those who have seen me talk about it in the past), I make a post a week, for people to debate on different shit I see in the news. This week's thread is on kneejerk reaction law making, and how often people make things worse because they didn't put much thought into something before making it law. Last week was the death penalty. Week before that was about a law that suspends habeas corpus for anyone labeled an enemy combatant (meaning anyone said to be an enemy of the state gets thrown in jail without a trial). The subject is just something I see and feel like ranting about, and get other people's thoughts on. My inspiration? Reading a website like digg.com, or hearing about something happening to someone I know. My personal life is just as uneventful, but I still can create ideas. Take a minor event, and use it as a starting spot to think of something more grand. Rage on, lil rager.

Hellmark wrote:This week's thread is on kneejerk reaction law making, and how often people make things worse because they didn't put much thought into something before making it law. Last week was the death penalty. Week before that was about a law that suspends habeas corpus for anyone labeled an enemy combatant (meaning anyone said to be an enemy of the state gets thrown in jail without a trial). The subject is just something I see and feel like ranting about, and get other people's thoughts on. My inspiration? Reading a website like digg.com, or hearing about something happening to someone I know. My personal life is just as uneventful, but I still can create ideas. Take a minor event, and use it as a starting spot to think of something more grand. Rage on, lil rager.

But see, therein lies my problem - I don't care about any of those things! Kneejerk lawmaking - what else is new? Society's going to hell in a handbasket, and I mostly blame politicians. Meh. Death penalty? Mandatory for all violent crimes, simple. If people know they're getting the chair no matter what, they'll stop breaking the law. Habeas corpus? Again, so all of our civil freedoms are going down the shitter - how is that news? It's only a matter of time until we all live in internment camps with barcodes on us anyway. Really, there aren't many news events that I could scrape up more than a one-line response to, and the few that I could would just be the same rambling rants over and over. Not pretty.

MP81 wrote:Dude, you should write books or something in. You got some fuckin' talent.

Thanks little dude, that actually means a lot to me... I used to write a little, always wished I could write books but I just aint got the attention span for it. Probably a lot of the same reasons I can't write SocDev articles very often actually! =P

Ah, ya silly prick, you should have come in for a cold one instead of driving off like that, you know mi casa es su casa! =)

Slick-Labia wrote:I quite enjoyed your half-assed blog post. You could have fooled me into thinking it was a full-assed post.

Naw, a full-assed blog post from me would be peppered with hotlinked URLs and embedded image tags, and a lot more font formatting. And a heap more swear words. =P

Hero of the Day wrote:an interesting look into your life ven...

Well, I would have appreciated those words, if it weren't for this next post a couple of hours later:-

Hero of the Day wrote:pathetic as vens life may sound... he is still cooler than you JJ

Pathetic eh?! Nice to know how you really feel, burger boy! My life might be pretty shit, but I'll lay my life against yours pro for pro, con for con, and watch the chips stack in my corner any day of the week sunshine! Nice of you to judge my life in terms of "At least his life is marginally better than CJJ's!"... well fuck you pal... >=)

cdoublejj wrote:No insults, really ven. never had any one root for you before?

Heh, don't worry little dude - for once, it's not you who put his foot in his mouth... it was Jason who decided it might be nice to insult me by reading this post and then saying my life was fucking pathetic... I'm still waiting to hear him explain that one away...